Wertham lied

Superdickery is a humor sight playing on the naivite of old comics panels when taken out of context. It is funny.

Regarding Wertham's book, non-fiction works are still plagued with poor research and opinions masquerading as fact. Take anything from the FOX news line of best selling conspiracy theories and reinterpretations of history. Bill O'Reilly has been on the NYtimes list for ages. Naomi Wolf's recent book has been criticized for doing much the same thing. What about Three Cups of Tea? or any of the amazing diet books or health books based on pseudo-science? What about the books criticizing D&D, articles against Harry Potter, or putting the blame for school massacre's on Marilyn Manson or, more recently, Batman? (The recent Detective Comics story was an interesting reference to this, BTW.) How about the vaccination causes autism myth?

Seduction of the Innocent maybe came from a different era where the public was more gullible, perhaps, but it is only one of many, many examples of fraudulent portrayal of research to prove a point.

...outlines the story ("boner" is used around 40 times in the story.) The webmaster theorizes that the story was written with this many uses of the word (which was absurdly over used for a short story in an multiple story book) as sort of a "thumbing of the nose" to the CCA.

...outlines the story ("boner" is used around 40 times in the story.) The webmaster theorizes that the story was written with this many uses of the word (which was absurdly over used for a short story in an multiple story book) as sort of a "thumbing of the nose" to the CCA.

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No, I'm in my forties. Too old to think about just Googling the term I guess.

so the old covers where superman is being weird and/or nasty represents a better time or something? and society has regressed to the point where a little character development is required and thats a bad thing? eh? whaa?

A) Those old comic covers and panels are now being read into my modern minds to find different contexts and stuff in them. They're made so clean they're like the Match Game. Hence him pointing out the Superdickery site. Which ignores that that site is poking FUN at the the concept, purposefully taking the comics out of context and that some of those panels don't need help to read in an odd way.

B) On a grander scope, the concept became a self-fulfilling prophecy. The CCA forced main stream comic companies to get overly, squeaky, clean. By the mid/late 80s independent comic companies got more and more popular by not adopting the CCA and breaking boundaries. The independent companies became more popular and were threatening the big companies.

As a result the big companies over-compensated for decades of repression and trying to "out do" the independents by going to far, possible marring the "clean" images of the characters that had been popular for decades. It only got worse as the CCA became less and less of an influence and main-stream companies dropped it.

No, it doesn't, and that's exactly the point. Everything HAS become grim and gritty, and anything that isn't is automatically (and incorrectly) written off as "campy".

And that's just sad.

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You are spot-on; the obsession with everyone being "dark," "grim and gritty" offers no contrast--the very thing which exists in real life--ironic, since the advocates of "grim and gritty" believe their content is realistic. They ignore how audiences--contrary to Hollywood's wish--are not expecting all characters to be dark, psychologically damaged or morally bankrupt, or view them as normal.

They ignore how audiences--contrary to Hollywood's wish--are not expecting all characters to be dark, psychologically damaged or morally bankrupt, or view them as normal.

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What they are not ignoring is a track record of audiences paying to see this and not that.

I don't know where fans get this notion that some fad or fashion just runs riot through the entertainment industry for no better reason than that these people are somehow disconnected from popular enthusiasms and feel like amusing themselves by burning huge wads of cash to prove how clever they are. That business is as Darwinian as you can imagine - people make big mistakes (and everyone remembers them for quite a while), but when something fails big just about everyone draws one conclusion: don't do that again. The reverse is also true.

They ignore how audiences--contrary to Hollywood's wish--are not expecting all characters to be dark, psychologically damaged or morally bankrupt, or view them as normal.

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What they are not ignoring is a track record of audiences paying to see this and not that.

I don't know where fans get this notion that some fad or fashion just runs riot through the entertainment industry for no better reason than that these people are somehow disconnected from popular enthusiasms and feel like amusing themselves by burning huge wads of cash to prove how clever they are.

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On a personal note, I have quite a number of old friends woking in that industry, and they are not shy about stating --point blank--how social agendas like the push for more dysfunctional/odd characters hold much power in that business in how/why content is produced. To the point of the OP's reference to Man of Steel, before Nolan's Batman movies, no one--other than the equally dysfunctional Tim Burton--wanted to turn Superman into a candidate for anti-depression meds.

Post Nolan, Superman cannot be the contrast he used to be in the so-called DC universe. The differences between Batman and Superman--dark and light, respectively--added to the color of the overall superhero dynamic, as it--like personalities real life--do not swing in one direction. Even after Nolan, there's no public demand for a dark Superman--to be "Nolanized," as the expression goes, but WB is forcing agenda over reality. That--i'm guessing--is the bigger message of the OP.

also superman has the problem that he's a bit boring due to being unbeatably 'super'. a little personal anguish might add some interest.

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Yeah. There has to be something about him that makes him interesting and relatable, as a character. We have a morally upstanding guy who always makes the right choices and is virtually invulnerable. Wow, how exciting.

How do you make it interesting? By giving him and flaws and foibles.

Conceiving of Superman as a contrast to Batman is cool and all, except that people like Batman because he's flawed, brooding, and complex. Superman is none of those, which is why he's not very interesting.